Unfinished Business
by Sleepy Lotus
Summary: After Jack returns from the Locker, he's unsure if he'd rather kiss Elizabeth or kill her. Either way, they have unfinished business.
1. Part I

**Unfinished Business**

Summary: After Jack returns from the Locker, he's torn as to whether he'd rather kiss or kill Elizabeth. Either way, they have unfinished business.

Pairing: Jack and Elizabeth. Forever! Ahem…

Disclaimer: Don't own it, make no money, and so on.

Setting: During AWE

A/N: Here you are, my dears, the first of four parts of the aforementioned 10,000 word monster. :) Enjoy!

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PART I  


Late at night, deep into the last watch, a certain calm fell over the Pearl, though not exactly a silence. The men were mostly quiet, murmuring to each other now and then. The great ship moaned like a beast of the sea as she slid through the dark waters, waves lapping against the hull. There was the groan of the lines, the myriad of ropes and blocks protesting their duties, the flap of canvas answering the whispering wind.

Elizabeth's thoughts drowned all other ambient noise, chanting without rest inside her skull.

All in all, Elizabeth's thoughts were too _loud_ in her own head this time of night.

She stood by the gunwale near the bowsprit, looking out over the dark waters. She would not sleep in her hammock, in the stuffy humidity below. If she were to be miserable, she at least preferred to do so with a salted breeze upon her face.

Elizabeth speculated the cause of said misery was holed up in his cabin, probably nursing a bottle of rum. By the dark circles beneath his eyes, she surmised Captain Jack Sparrow did not sleep well either, after returning from Davy Jones' locker. There would be another battle soon. Everyone could feel it. This could be their last quiet night aboard the Pearl, yet Elizabeth found the peace hard to savor.

There had been _too much_ peace, for her tastes.

Jack had not said so much as two words to her, since his rescue. He avoided looking at her, avoided sharing her presence as though she were a plague. Her last childish notion that everything would be alright, that this gaping wound inside would heal itself if they could just find Jack and bring him back, had shriveled and died. She didn't know what it left her. She hardly knew who she was anymore.

 _Everything_ had changed.

With a heavy sigh Elizabeth seated herself upon the gunwale, relishing the thrill in the precarious position. The safe path no longer brought her pleasure. In all things now, she sought the edge.

It was some time before a shadow caught Elizabeth's attention, hovering just out the corner of her eye. She turned to find Jack leaning against the foremast, quiet as the ghost he now resembled, his tall form looming without a sound. In spite of herself she gasped, her grip upon the gunwale tightening. Her right hand flew to touch where the hilt of her sword would have been, had she been armed.

By the hard look in his eyes, Elizabeth thought perhaps it was quite foolish to be going about the Pearl without her sword and pistol. They were in her hammock below, too far away to be of any help to her now.

Elizabeth waited, hoped, _prayed_ for a flash of gold in a mouth splitting in a smile. A playful admonishment. _Careful luv. It's a long way down._

But only silence stretched on between them, the handsome captain's features swathed in shadow. Suddenly quite annoyed, Elizabeth straightened. "Well. If it isn't Captain Sparrow. Come to pitch me overboard and finally be done with it?"

She might have detected the slightest twitch of a smile at the corner of Jack's mouth, but in the end she wrote it off to a mirage borne of her own childish hopes.

The shadow made a show of tipping his tricorn hat, before returning it to an unusually straight position atop his raven-locked head. "Milady Murderess, good evenin'. Do ye fancy it's a good night for a dip?"

A part of Elizabeth itched to slide down from her perch, but she decided it would look too much like a retreat. Stubbornly, she stayed put.

The silence stretched long between them. Silences with Jack had never bothered Elizabeth before. Before, such quiet had been companionable. Now…it was positively pregnant, and for the life of her she couldn't say with what. Hatred? Disappointment? Fear? All of the above, perhaps, and what a merry medley it made.

Upon finally facing this chit of a girl who had proved his undoing, Jack felt the most unsettling pressure in his chest, a needling pain just above his heart. He was rather known for his excessive verbosity, yet now it seemed to take the most Herculean effort to open his mouth.

 _She's just a girl, mate,_ he told himself, and a voice inside quickly responded, _a girl who killed you._

Yet she didn't look like a girl anymore. There was a weight in her caramel colored eyes that for some reason twisted the knife in his breast even more.

He'd been betrayed by friends before, and women too, and yet it had never hurt quite like _this._

Finally he managed to break the silence, taking a small step closer. "I had a different thought, though there's always time for your idea later. I thought, perchance, ye might like the chance to apologize." _For killing me_ hung unsaid in the air.

Immediately Elizabeth's eyes narrowed, her nostrils flaring.

Perhaps the thought had occurred to her. Oh, and wouldn't he _love_ it, if she came crawling to him on bended knee? Well, it wasn't solely pride that held her tongue hostage.

"I might entertain the idea, if you were to do the same."

Jack visibly bristled, his shadowy form straightening before her.

"M'sorry, were _you_ eaten by a kraken and sent to the locker?"

"Very nearly, thanks to you," Elizabeth huffed. "You deceived us all, to your own ends. You made a deal with the devil and expected us to pay the bill with our lives."

"Not _exactly_ ," he protested. "I did come back…for all the good it did me."

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes for the reminder, remembering the sick feeling that gripped her upon seeing the pirate captain rowing away from the Pearl that horrible day. She lifted her chin defiantly, bearing Jack's pointed dark gaze. He studied her for what felt like an eternity.

The girl had changed since last they'd met. All softness melted away; all innocence quashed. She'd become a warrior, Jack realized, in the fight to get him back. He didn't know exactly where she'd gone or what she'd seen. No second hand story can ever really convey the experience of a journey like that. He found himself a little sad to find her like this. And a little proud. And still so very… _annoyed_.

She'd beaten him at his own game.

He'd taught her well.

Yet, he couldn't be content. Fool that he was, Captain Sparrow still felt _a little_ entitled to his pound of flesh.

Warming up to this wicked game once more, the game they always played when they were together, Jack neared closer, his boot heels clicking slowly upon the deck. "So, if there's t'be no apologizing, I suppose that leaves the other." Elizabeth gasped as he stepped into the space between her legs, his strong hands stroking the length of her long thighs. And just as quickly he gripped behind her knees, tipping her balance just slightly backward.

With the reflexes of a cat she wrapped her long legs around his waist, and it was the only thing keeping her from tumbling back into the abyss of dark water below.

The feeling of her legs wrapped about his waist caused an unexpected heat to unfurl in Jack's belly, the ice cold of his anger tempered by the flame of desire, and nigh involuntarily he pulled her closer. As he always had, he masked his desire for Elizabeth with something that was sure to infuriate her.

Wide eyed, she looked to Jack, to find the most irritating smirk turning up the corner of his mouth. Indeed, it was the first smile she'd seen upon his handsome visage since his return, but it was not a nice one.

"Careful, Miss Swann. You'll catch your death out here."

Her heart thundered so hard in her chest she felt certain Jack could hear it. Her hands rested upon the plane of his chest, muscle that was hard and unforgiving beneath her hands. She knew she couldn't fight his superior strength like this. Sadder yet, she found she didn't want to.

She was tired of fighting.

She'd fought so much in the past year, and the battles were not done. Yet she had a feeling Jones or Beckett would not prove to be her most difficult foes. Her greatest adversary stood in front of her, his hands upon her thighs in the most infuriatingly familiar way.

"Go on, then," she dared him. "Send us both to hell. Perhaps it's the road we've been headed down together all along."

She tightened her hold upon him, quite aware of the impropriety of their position, and she hardly cared anymore. There was a cruel irony in being tangled up with him this way, his narrow hips fitted snugly between her thighs. She wanted him. He wanted to kill her, it seemed, but she simply wanted to be in his arms. This was hardly the reunion she'd hoped for.

And so it was much to her surprise when his arm slipped about her waist beneath her coat, pulling her just a hair away from the brink of destruction. His hand scalded her skin, and engulfed the curve of her hip in his palm.

He spoke softly against her ear, his breath maddeningly hot upon her skin. "'Fraid I was headed down that road long before you met me, Elizabeth."

 _Lizzy_ , she thought. _Please, call me Lizzy again. Just once._

"Does this mean you won't do away with me after all?" she dared ask, suddenly exhilarated to have him so near. Of their own accord her hands wandered across his chest, seeking the warmth of his skin beneath the lapels of his coat.

"Maybe not yet." His lips trailed her jawline, descending to her neck. "We have unfinished business, you and I." Elizabeth's hand convulsed upon the fabric of his shirt as he placed a single kiss upon her pulse, her strong legs pulling him closer of their own volition.

Deep in his chest, the pirate groaned, and he was glad she could not see the momentary expression of raw desire upon his face.

"And what business might that be?" She hardly recognized her own voice, so low and throaty it almost hurt to speak.

Jack cupped the side of her face in his hand, drawing back just enough to regard her mouth, those bee-stung lips that had proved his downfall that fateful day. "Last we met, we left off right _here_ ," he said above her mouth, his dark eyes fixed to that appendage he so coveted. He inhaled a breath as though to say something more, but the captain paused. Lost in thought, lost in time.

Before Elizabeth could speak he suddenly closed the space between their mouths, taking her with a punishing kiss that threatened to topple them overboard all over again. He kissed her as though he meant to eat her, devour her flesh and lick the bones clean. Elizabeth melted against him, unable to raise the slightest protest or even think one single clear thought, with his lips upon hers once more.

When at last her body could no longer go on without a breath of air she broke free, gasping hard for a mouthful of cool night air. " _Jack_." She meant it as a question, but his name sounded like a prayer upon her lips, and she thanked God no one was there to hear it but him.

She arched against him as he kissed her throat, her hair spilling out behind her, her hat tipping off into the abyss of the dark waters below. At the moment she paid it no heed. There was only Jack. Jack touching her, growling against her skin, claiming her with his mouth, and no longer ignoring her. "Did ye think of me while I was gone?" he asked, claiming her mouth before she could answer.

"Perhaps a little," she answered evasively between kisses, the sharp note in her voice masking the despair she felt inside, upon remembering the hours and days and months of her guilt and wandering speculation. There were nights in her hammock when she thought she might simply _die_ of wanting and guilt, that horrible black feeling in her belly and heart, and Will sleeping in his hammock not but a yard away.

Jack narrowed his eyes for the uncertain response. She _would_ be difficult, even now. A smile he could not quell tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"What did you think about? _A little?_ " he pressed.

As Jack's hand slipped beneath her shirt, his calloused fingers dragging across her tender skin, she could only answer with a soft moan. _Impertinent beast_ she thought to herself as he loosened the wrappings about her breasts, slipping his hand inside. _You wretched rogue._ Strangely, there was no venom in these words, only spoken in her mind. There was joy, and relief, and yet somewhere in the back of her mind she knew none of it meant he had forgiven her.

When his fingers closed upon her nipple, surprisingly gentle, all coherent thought subsided in her mind, giving way to the frissons of pleasure that jetted through her core. _Only Jack,_ she mused once some semblance of sanity returned. _Only Jack could make her feel this way._

Jack knew he should stop.

 _She has a fiancé,_ he tried to remind himself. _A fiancé who is alarmingly proficient with pointy objects. A fiancé who is SLEEPING below your feet, you dolt!_

Yet he could not bring himself to listen to his own good advice. It was an all too familiar predicament of his. There was a question he desperately needed answered, a question he'd been asking this girl without a word since the moment they met.

Never mind this was the most alive he'd felt since coming back from the Locker, Elizabeth's lithe young body tied up with his. Not to mention that while in the Locker thoughts of her had _plagued_ his imagination, danced tauntingly before his eyes and between his ears and… _hell with it._

Nearly working of their own accord, Jack's fingers tugged at the laces of her breeches, loosening them enough to dip his hand inside. He combed through downy curls to find her molten center, already dripping wet. He stroked her expertly with one finger, like a maestro plucking the first note upon his instrument. She gasped but did not fight it, and he knew with a medley of relief and vindication that for at least this fleeting moment, she belonged to _him_ at last.

"Perhaps ye thought about where that kiss could have led, if ye hadn't ruined it by killing me?" he suggested, nipping at the skin of her neck. Elizabeth clutched at him, utterly dizzy with disbelief and desire, biting her lip to quell the wanton sounds that fought to escape her mouth as his fingers explored her most sensitive flesh.

"I…" It was all she could manage, with Jack's hands upon her in this way, his lips claiming every inch of her mouth and neck and chest.

She _had_ thought about that subject, exhaustively, yet her imagination had never _ever_ brought her anywhere near _this._ This mad, insistent desire that left her body trembling with need, her heart threatening to pound out of her chest. She thought of the pleasant little thrill she used to feel when Will kissed her, compared to this ravening howling _thing_ Jack awoke within her. This _thing_ only Jack could call, and she had a feeling, only _he_ could banish back to her depths again.

"Nothin' t'say for yourself? Well that's a first." He laughed against her skin, a low growl of a chuckle that raised the gooseflesh upon her spine. It was a laugh that reminded her, no matter how strange and silly this man seemed at times, he was a predator of the water, just as surely as a shark or giant squid.

 _Pirate_.

The tip of one finger dipped inside her, a sensation so new and alien for Elizabeth that her spine stiffened, a gasp torn from her throat. And Jack's eyebrows raised high as he encountered the spongy barrier just inside her, the physical proof that despite the darkness in this woman's eyes, she in fact still remained a maiden. _Surely thought the whelp would have taken care of that by now_ Jack thought, unable to comprehend _how_ Will could prove such a bastion of self-control. He pressed against it out of curiosity, truly not experienced on the subject of virgins, a rarely encountered creature in his world, and won a hiss of pain from the woman in his arms.

Immediately Jack withdrew.

This woman had _killed_ him, and he found he still didn't really want to hurt her. Now wasn't that _ironic_?

He went back to stroking her in that maddening way, and Elizabeth soon melted against him once more. Jack relished the feeling of her hands clinging to him, her head nestled in the bend of his neck, her body strung tight as a bow string. _This_ was what he liked. Craved. _Needed._ To prove to her…what exactly? What had he been wanting to prove all along?

"Tell me the truth, Elizabeth," he rasped against her ear.

"About what?" she managed, barely able to find her voice above the mad clamor of pleasure he elicited in her body.

"You missed me?"

She groaned, a sound caught halfway between annoyance and need. She shook her head against his chest, and Jack smiled wide enough for gold to show, though only because she couldn't see it. This was _too much_ fun. Reducing the proud, haughty, _oh so_ refined governor's daughter to this wanton goddess of heathen passion in his arms.

He brought her to what he knew was her brink, that shining edge of madness and ultimate gratification, a fine sheen of sweat broken out upon her brow.

And then he slowed, barely touching her, denying her release. A plaintive little growl escaped her, the mewling of a frustrated lion cub.

"What was that? I couldn't _quite_ make it out?"

She clenched her fist in the cloth of his shirt, tilting her head back to face him. Yet before she could speak he kissed her, a bruising, punishing kiss that bowed her spine, his hand tangled in her hair. He began once more to give her what she needed, sure fast strokes against that special place between her legs.

This was the most maddening sensation she'd ever experienced, Elizabeth reasoned, and of course it would be Jack to cause it. She could hardly stand what he was doing to her, yet she could not fathom telling him to stop. Again she neared what she knew must be the end, the goal, the prize. " _I missed you_ ," she found herself admitting breathily against the column of his neck. " _I missed you so much_."

Just as she thought with a few more strokes she would finally be set free, Jack paused.

 _There_ was his answer. The knowledge he craved with such tenacious veracity. And a shred of sanity returned with this question finally addressed, and thoughts of why this was all a very bad idea, and if in fact he did make Elizabeth come upon the gunwale of his ship there would be no stopping himself from doing _another_ stupid thing, like taking her virginity upon the most convenient nearby barrel, or _maybe_ he would have the decency to take her back to his cabin at least, but it would all be for naught because if Davy Jones and Beckett didn't manage to kill him ( _again_!) young William certainly would.

"That's all I needed to know," Jack whispered, and Elizabeth watched in stupefied disbelief as he disentangled himself from her, leaving her cold and empty as he withdrew a few steps. And with a final dark look she could not fathom the meaning of, he retreated across the deck, disappearing in the direction of his cabin across the ship.

Shaking, Elizabeth gasped, a hand flying to her throat as though to physically staunch the sob of frustration she felt building inside.

 _How dare he?!_

She slumped against the gunwale, taking a deep breath of salty air. She looked at her state of dishevelment, her breeches loose about her hips, the buttons at her throat undone, her wrappings a lumpy mess beneath her shirt, her hat _gone,_ and she couldn't _imagine_ the state of her hair after the way Jack had… _oh!_

She looked as undone on the outside as she'd felt on the inside for...for as long as she'd known him, she realized.

Disbelief quickly gave way to fury coiling red hot in her gut. That rotten blackguard! He would _not_ cast her aside so easily! She would _not_ give him the last word!


	2. Part II

A/N: The gorgeous cover was so generously made by Florencia7. Thank you, dearest! :)

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 **PART II  
**

Jack slammed the door of his cabin, leaning against it as though a herd of howling natives pursued him across his ship.

 _Rum_.

Quickly he flung open the doors of his liquor cabinet, clasping a bottle of kill devil and wrenching free the cork. A few swallows later the world seemed to spin with _a little_ less fervor, but it certainly hadn't stopped completely.

What the bloody hell had he been _thinking?_

He _hadn't_ been thinking, he amended. Well…not with his brain, he realized with a wry glance down to the appendage between his legs that still stood at full attention, and was _quite_ annoyed the rest of Jack had put an end to the fun.

Which, as one would have it, was _always_ what got him into trouble with that blasted girl. His cock and his…well, he could admit it in the confines of his own skull. His _heart,_ always got the better of him, when Elizabeth Swann was involved.

Jack took a seat behind his desk, slumping back in the chair. There would be hell to pay tomorrow. Or perhaps he would get lucky and Davy Jones and Beckett would blast him to smithereens, and spare him the pain of whatever Miss Swann undoubtedly had in store for him now.

Or perhaps ol' Davy and that nasty little Lord Beckett would never get the chance, because he quite distinctly heard the sound of boots fervently clacking across the deck in a hurried line towards his cabin. Captain Sparrow took another drink of rum and said goodbye to the world as he knew it, _again._

As she burst in upon him he made certain to assume a mildly amused expression, the one that always seemed to infuriate her most. His eyebrows raised high as she closed the door, not only latching it but turning the key in the lock as well.

"Well, well. I see you still don't know when you're better off, Miss Swann."

Absently he sucked upon the finger that had been so intimately acquainted with her secret treasure, as though having just enjoyed a most delicious meal.

Even in her deliciously disheveled state, the chit still managed to look positively regal, lifting her chin in that infuriating way. _Damn this girl!_ his thoughts hissed. Any _sensible_ pair of people who had engaged in the opposing roles of an act of murder would be doing something logical right now, like dueling to the death, or at least at each other's throats, and not running in circles eternally undecided in whether or not they really wanted to fuck each other.

His cock twitched in his breeches with the thought, weighing in his vote on the subject.

"And I see you still run from the things that scare you, _Captain_ Sparrow."

He wagged a bejeweled finger in her direction. "An entirely sensible course of action when faced with ravenous giant cephalopods and fiery young maidens who have succeeded in feeding you to the above mentioned beastie in the recent past."

She stamped her foot like a petulant child, clenching her fists with barely tamped rage. "I brought you _back_ ," she insisted, pointing right back at him. "Without me you would not be sitting in that chair, smiling smugly with a bottle of rum and licking your fingers like a cretin."

Jack doffed his tricorn in her direction. "The least you could do, if ye ask me. And may I ask, what the blazes do you think you're doing in _here_?"

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, taking another step into the room. Her limbs positively trembled, and she wasn't sure if it was from anger, fear, or desire. Probably all three, she reasoned. Jack had a way of tying up her insides just so. It seemed dying hadn't changed that.

Though he raised a very good question. Just what the _hell_ did she think she was doing in here? What did she want? What did _Jack_ want? It had seemed he might want to take his revenge upon her, but had swiftly changed his course. _When you wrapped your legs around him like a two-bit hussy_ she realized. As though his earlier administrations hadn't been enough of a clue, it truly dawned on her that Jack still _wanted_ her. It caused a flutter of hope, deep down in her chest, that he did not hate her after all.

Yet, unless she forced the insufferable pirate to show his cards, something he was always positively _loathe_ to do, she doubted he would act upon it again on his own. He would run his mouth and run circles about her, playing his games and spouting all sorts of innuendo—yet in the end _she_ had been the one to take action last time they shared a moment of passion.

 _So what will you do?_ she asked herself. _Slink away like a coward, or take charge?_

She bit her lip as she began to formulate a plan. The worse that could happen was Jack would throw her out on her arse. Or…try to kill her again. Either fate she might even deserve. She realized that even if she felt Jack also owed her an apology, she wanted to offer some sort of penance for her own crime, for her own conscience as much as Jack's gratification.

"You said it yourself, Jack. We have unfinished business, you and I."

The pirate captain swallowed hard, his own insides knotted in a similar fashion. After coming back from the Locker Elizabeth inspired dueling urges to run towards her with open arms and run away as _fast_ as he could. As she neared closer, he felt both with alarming urgency.

And so he remained in his chair.

"Me memory may be dodgy, having _died_ , but I do seem to recall _someone_ giving me advice about seizing opportunities to be a better man as they come to me." He made a flourishing gesture with his hands, rings glinting in the candlelight. "Yet after I have done so, said _advisor_ has presently and quite improperly followed me into my cabin, while her fiancé sleeps below in a hammock, snug as a babe in his crib, no doubt dreamin; o' married life with his bonny lass. Fool that he be."

A bitter laugh fell from Elizabeth's lips that surprisingly squeezed Jack's heart, a painful little zing that made him twitch in his chair. Unable to meet Jack's eyes, her gaze fell to the floor. "My. It seems like a lifetime ago that I would consider myself even mildly qualified to lecture on what is _good_ and _bad_. Now I think there is only what you can do and can't do. There is what you can live with, and what you can't live without. Those are the questions now."

She dared look up at him from beneath her lashes, and found a rather solemn Jack Sparrow staring back at her. He seemed almost etherealin the candlelight, a creature made of gold and shadows. Jack's heart pounded as her words rained upon him, and for once he had nothing to say for a good long while.

 _Pirate,_ he thought. _She's a pirate through and through, now._

Elizabeth broke the silence, her voice ringing hollow and dispassionate as an assertion about the weather. "I'm not going to marry him."

By the stone cold resolution in her words, Jack actually believed her.

 _Well, thank fuck for that,_ he found himself thinking, and then was instantly annoyed with himself. Why the bloody hell should _he_ care whether she did or didn't marry the whelp?

Why indeed.

"Told the whelp that yet?"

"I think he knows."

She and William hadn't really spoken since the kraken took the Pearl, and Elizabeth reasoned it was for the better in the end. She had realized since that her heart didn't belong to William anymore. Perhaps it never really did.

"What made ye change yer mind?"

Elizabeth pressed her lips, flexing her jaw with thought. "I'm not the woman he thinks I am. He's never seen me for who I really am. Until recently, I don't think I had either."

Jack took a bolstering swig of rum. Was it just him, or was it suddenly _unbearably_ warm in his cabin?

A quip of _you mean, he doesn't see ye for a charming little murderess?_ died on his lips. He surprised himself with the words he spoke instead. "It's a rare thing t'find a person who really knows themselves," he answered, fixing her with eyes that burned like twin black suns. "Rarer yet t'find someone who sees ye for who ye really are."

Suddenly Elizabeth was very interested in the toes of her boots. "You've always seen me for who I really am," she said, her voice so quiet Jack barely made out her words. Yet still their power managed to send a frisson of gooseflesh across his skin, causing his grip upon the neck of the rum bottle to tighten.

A long silence passed between them, during which Elizabeth felt certain the pounding of her heart must be audible in the confines of the Pearl's great cabin. And then Jack's eyebrow rose a notch higher, as Elizabeth removed her coat, hanging it upon the back of a chair. The eyebrow reached its absolute apex, when she stepped out of her boots as well.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, rather meekly for the captain of the ship, unable to tear his eyes from her. Where candlelight made Jack appear a little more sinister, deepening the shadows of his swarthy features, it gilded Elizabeth like an angel, catching like fire in her tousled golden tresses, making her eyes shine like burnished coins.

"Getting comfortable. I'm going to be here for a while."

"Oh, ye think so?"

She seemed impervious to his jibes, her eyes glinting defiantly in the candlelight. With a glare across the room she dared him to say nay, as she pulled free the loosened bindings from beneath her shirt, unwinding them from her waist foot by foot. She draped them across the back of the chair as well, and Jack felt the tempo of his heart increasing with the size of the pile of garments upon the chair.

The thump of her gully knife from her boot being thrown upon the table caused him to jump in his seat, and the corner of her mouth twitched. But the coup de grace came as she loosened the ties of her breeches, stepping out of the oversized garment, and placed them like a cherry on top of the pile of clothing. Her hands shook a little as she did so, and she hoped Jack wouldn't notice.

Her shirt hung down to her thighs, still covering everything… _pertinent,_ and yet Jack's mouth went dry as she came to stand before him, a hand upon her hip. Her bare legs seemed to go on forever, and the curves of her figure were hardly disguised by the voluminous linen shirt. Jack found himself gripping the arms of his chair, unable to tear his eyes from her.

For a long time she stood still as a statue before him, curious what he would do. Hoping, she realized, that he would grab her up and fill the gaps where her knowledge sadly lacked.

However, he would not prove so cooperative, sitting back as far in his chair as he could from her. It was almost comical in a way, and simultaneously heartbreaking. He flinched as she lifted a hand, yet watched with abject fascination as she loosed one more button of her shirt. Intrigued, she tilted her head to regard Jack, her hair spilling down over her shoulder. Apparently she had a lot to learn about men. They said one thing when their bodies very much meant another.

Appropriating the bottle upon the desk, Elizabeth took a fortifying swig of rum without flinching.

"I believe you owe me a hat, Captain Sparrow."

She could have pushed him over with a feather as she plucked his own tricorn from atop his head, relocating it upon her own. It was too big and sat low over her eyes, throwing her face in shadow. Before he could regain any semblance of his wits Elizabeth turned for the berth. The sight of her glancing invitingly over her shoulder at him, his hat slung low over her eyes, the barest hint of round buttocks visible beneath that damned shirt…it was enough to drive him madder than the Locker ever did.

Where did she learn to _look_ at a man like that? Certainly not from the whelp.

A pirate _and_ a maiden. A deadly combination indeed, as she'd already proven.

Elizabeth curled upon her side on the berth, propping her head in her hand. She gave no indication of how truly nervous she felt inside, levelling her caramel colored gaze at Jack. They sat caught in limbo for what felt like an eternity, the seemingly short space between them stretched wide as an ocean.

She wondered if he would throw her out on her bare arse after all, for the stone-faced way he looked upon her. She'd never seen such a look upon his visage before, his dark eyes filled simultaneously with hunger and dread.

Not so long ago, Jack remembered hearing his crew members commenting on Elizabeth's figure. _Skinny as a lad_ they'd chuckled under their breaths while coiling line. _Nothin' t'hold on to._ But Jack had always suspected different after pulling her sodden form from the bay that fateful day, and he could see now that he'd been utterly correct in his assessment. The mound of her breast threatened to spill from the unbuttoned collar of her shirt, and the curve of her hips and buttocks was utterly _breathtaking_.

Sufficiently flummoxed, Jack took a swig of rum.

Who _was_ this girl? Certainly not the coy young thing he'd sparred with upon his ship, with whom he'd traded barely veiled propositions in words such as _persuasion_ and _mar-i-age._ Or hardly even the sad-eyed woman he'd just encountered upon the deck, who he'd left flustered in the forecastle.

Was it even _real_? The line between reality and his dream scape had been quite thin since his return from the locker. He squeezed closed his eyes, chanting _wake up wake up wake up_ in his head. Upon opening his eyes, he found Elizabeth still lay there before him, lounging upon his berth like a half-clothed odalisque.

Elizabeth drew figure eights upon the bedspread with a long finger, looking up at Jack from beneath her lashes. "Am I to have the bed all to myself tonight, then? It is a sight more comfortable than a hammock, I suppose it wouldn't be a tragedy after all." She fluffed one of his lumpy pillows, propping herself upon it. The motion caused the hem of the shirt to ride up torturously high, her breasts nearly spilling from her shirt, and Jack groaned, unable to stand it any longer.

He rose from his chair, putting down the bottle of rum with a _thump._

 _Well, God damn_ , he thought. _This is really, truly, inexplicably, happening_. _Now_.

Elizabeth watched with a mixture of trepidation and poorly disguised hunger as he shrugged out of his coat, tossing it sharply upon his chair. "Ye can't take this back, ye know. It's quite…permanent."

As he came to stand beside the bed Elizabeth tilted her head back to regard him. "You mean like killing a man?" she deadpanned, in a tone so barren of emotion Jack's gut clenched.

He caught her chin in his hand, turning her gaze to him none too gently. "Decidedly more so…or so it would seem."

"I know at least _that much_ about it," she retorted, pulling free of his grasp. "Are you coming down here, or are we just going to glare at each other all night?"

Annoyed, he took back his hat, tossing it upon a side table. It was like lifting the lid off a chest of gold, the sudden revelation of her gilded beauty stealing his breath away. Further vexed that she affected him this way, _still_ , after what she had done to him, he shot back, "Are ye in that big of a hurry, luv?"

Elizabeth froze, something inside bursting with warmth as that last word settled over her. She closed her eyes, as though savoring a warm ocean breeze. "Say it again," she whispered, as Jack watched her with even more befuddlement.

"What?"

"Luv," she repeated. "Luv and Lizzy and darlin', all those infuriatingly familiar names you used to call me. I miss hearing them."

The pirate captain's expression softened, waylaid by her unexpected sweetness.

She'd never really _ever_ been sweet to him before, he realized. Always, even when they were on good terms, it felt as though they were locked in the full pitch of battle.

He felt that roiling pit of anger damper inside, replaced by something decidedly more pleasant, though just a befuddling. " _Lizzy_ ," he said, coiling a lock of her golden hair between his fingers. "What do you _really_ want? Hmm?"

She looked down, suddenly quite interested in the weave and weft of the bedspread. "Your forgiveness," she answered quietly, unable to meet his eyes. A small little laugh escaped her, the first trace of nerves in her performance. "And…I think you can guess."

"Ye don't even know what to call it, do you?"

She shifted to kneel before him, tentatively reaching for his tunic. "Does it matter?" As she began to unfasten his buttons, Jack wasn't really sure it did. His fingers traced the line of her jaw, down to rest upon her slender throat. His large hand engulfed her svelte neck almost entirely, and though he knew she was not fragile, she certainly _felt_ that way. Delicate. Petite. Remarkably fine. _Too_ fine for the likes of him.

He was a pirate, and he'd always relished taking that which he could never ever dream of owning otherwise. Gold. Jewels. Ships. And now Elizabeth Swann, Governor's daughter.

She took a deep breath, her eyes sliding closed.

Waiting for him to change his mind, and take his revenge after all.

All he had to do was squeeze.

Perhaps he'd thought about killing her more than a few times while trapped in the Locker, yet now _that_ kind of revenge didn't so interesting. It was entirely too…predictable.

His fingers slid up into her hair, gripping that golden mane at the base of her neck, pulling her head back to look at him. "I wouldn't confuse _this_ with _that,_ darlin'. They are decidedly _not_ one and the same."

Elizabeth clenched her jaw, unsettled by how much she liked Jack's rough hands upon her, tangled in her hair, making her _his._ Her hands paused upon his buttons for the briefest moment, before she shrugged, the neck of her shirt falling down her shoulder. "It can't hurt."

Jack's grip in her hair softened, grabbing fistfuls of soft waves, pulling her to him. "It _will_ hurt, Lizzy. You know that, don't you?"

"Everything about being a woman hurts. Why should this be any different?" Jack heard the disappointment and anger for the world in her words, and he felt sorry that at long last the governor's daughter had learned the lesson. More often than not, life chewed you up and spit you out, laughing all the while.

It made his heart ache, and he leaned down to kiss her, holding her close with hands upon her cheeks. He was surprisingly sweet, his tongue stroking her lips slowly, asking for entrance. All too gladly she granted it, opening beneath him, and Jack kissed her silly, his hands sliding down her body, dragging against the ladder of her ribcage to her waist. "I'll make it good for you, luv," he promised, hoping he wouldn't be made a liar.

By the way he'd nearly taken her upon the gunwale, Elizabeth believed he could. She doubled her efforts, unwinding his sash so that she could make short work of the remaining buttons of his tunic. As he felt Elizabeth's deft hands divesting him of his clothing Jack vaguely wondered again if this was even real, or yet another fantasy that had haunted his dreams while in the Locker. It was a fantasy he'd visited, truth be told, as both a living man and a dead one.

She worked the buttons of his shirt, pushing the time-worn garment from his shoulders, and gasped a little for the sight before her. Elizabeth realized she'd never actually seen Jack without a shirt before, though she wasn't sure why that should come as such a surprise. Surveying the map of scars and tattoos written across his tanned skin, her fingers brushed a scar upon his ribs that looked fresher than the others, a circular mark bigger than her fist with a gash in the center.

Lizzy realized it was a mark left from the tentacles of the Kraken, those wicked appendages fitted with suckers and teeth in the center. Chewing her lip, she traced this mark, the sting of tears filling her eyes. "Did it hurt?" she asked quietly, daring to turn her gaze up to Jack's.

He'd been eaten alive by a giant squid, before being sent by whatever means of magic to Jones' Locker. Of course it _bloody_ hurt. _A lot._ Yet Jack was never one to admit weakness when he could help it.

"A little." He brushed the tears away from her cheek, and chucked her under the chin. He did not enjoy seeing a woman cry, and yet the sight of her remorse moved some mountain deep inside him. _I'm not sorry,_ echoed in his memory. At the time he'd believed her, down to the marrow of his bones, but perhaps she'd been lying after all?

"Come now, luv. No tears. We're fierce and fearless pirates, remember? Shameless and remorseless sea dogs."

Elizabeth laughed a little, leaning her forehead upon his breastbone, clutching him to her as though she feared the arm of the Kraken might come through the stern windows and snatch him from her again. "Quite so," was her muffled reply against his chest. She didn't sound terribly convinced at the moment, and Jack watched with amazement as more of that roiling pit of anger he held deep inside began to dissipate.

He kissed her once more, coaxing her back upon the berth with his body over hers. Elizabeth watched with some puzzlement as he went to his knees beside the bed, pulling her closer. She had expected he would have fallen upon her by now. That telltale bulge in his breeches had not escaped her notice, and she at least vaguely understood what that meant.

Her maid, Molly, who had been more of a friend than a servant, growing up beside Elizabeth in the Swann household, had told her all sorts of things about her experiences with men as they reached puberty. Men of the docks who were nothing like what she knew at the time in her gilded cage, yet perhaps so very like this man before her now. Yet as Jack kissed the skin of her inner thigh, eliciting the most delicious thrill that ran down her spine, Elizabeth reckoned Molly had never mentioned anything about _this._

"Jack?"

He rolled his dark gaze up to meet hers, black eyes glittering. The sight caught her breath in her throat, Jack hovering above her most private area, with that mischievous light shining in his eyes once more. Ever so slightly, the corners of his mouth turned up, the vaguest hint of a smile. She realized she would have given anything to see that light, _that_ smile, returned to him again, the very least of which was offering her innocence up to him on a silver platter.

"Hush, luv, and lie back."

For once she did as she was told, and when Jack's mouth touched the flesh between her legs she sighed with surprised relief, his lips and tongue dong the most _inexplicably_ wonderful things. Again that nagging pressure built within her, that nigh _unbearable_ tightness that was both the most awful and most wonderful thing she'd ever felt. She waited for him to draw back, to leave her breathless and unfulfilled on the cusp of her peak as he had before, with a wicked gold-glinting smirk.

He did not.

He licked the pink oyster between her legs with that clever tongue until she exploded, her spine bowed like a puppet upon a string, a ragged cry she could not hold in seeming to rock the walls of the cabin. Those who slept below stirred in their hammocks, but soon drifted back to sleep. And those who worked the last watch upon deck exchanged knowing looks, but hardly batted an eye.

They had seen the shadow of Miss Swann chasing their captain across the deck, disappearing into Jack's cabin. Those who knew them reckoned it was only a matter of time. She'd sailed to the ends of the earth for that man, and the captain had let himself get eaten by a giant squid for her. Too bad for young Turner, but those two had fates that were twined and written in the stars.


	3. Part III

**PART 3**

Jack smiled as he watched her return to him gradually, her eyes focusing upon the room once more. "Jack…" was all she seemed capable of voicing at the moment. As she recovered he stepped out of his boots, and unlaced his breeches, pushing the worn cloth down his hips.

"D'ye know what the French call that, luv?" he asked, joining her upon the bed, clearly delighted by her state of happy befuddlement.

"I fear my lessons in French did not cover that particular subject," she answered lazily, a slow smile spreading on her lips.

"They call it _la petite mort._ The little death. Fitting, eh?"

Her smile widened slightly. How could her limbs be so simultaneously heavy and weightless? She felt as though she were made of clouds. "Are you implying that now _you've_ killed _me_?" she asked, amused by the thought.

"Perhaps, though I think I have to do it a few more times 'fore we're even," he replied cheekily. She felt him lift the loose shirt from her body, and the captain paused to admire the view, his eyes burning with a dark fire she felt herself irresistibly drawn to.

"Beautiful," he grumbled against her skin, catching one rosy nipple between his teeth, kissing and laving the tip with his tongue. "Too bloody beautiful t'be out here."

"This is where I belong," she insisted breathlessly, and Jack lay down beside her, pulling her close. He shook his head, though he was smiling still, the corners of his mouth quirked up ever so slightly. She could have wept with joy, seeing that long lost smile again.

Jack kissed her deeply, an earthy taste upon his lips, and she realized it was herself she tasted upon him. She'd marked him with a piece of herself, and she found the thought irresistibly tantalizing.

Elizabeth's hands travelled over Jack's muscular chest and abdomen, admiring a physique most men half his age would envy. It was a body hardened by a life at sea, and she marveled at every part of it. When she took him into her hands, squeezing gently, Jack groaned, burying his face into her hair. She explored his length and shape, fascinated by his contours and the velvety softness of his skin, covering an organ that was seemingly impossibly hard for something made solely of flesh. She grazed his testicles lightly with the tips of her nails, causing Jack to hiss an intake of breath, his grip tightening upon her.

Jack pulled her close, leaning over her, nestling his body with ease between her hips. "M'sorry luv. I can't wait any longer," he whispered in her ear, rubbing the tip of himself against the places he'd manipulated so skillfully with his tongue. Somehow, she felt that fire ignite once more in the cradle of her hips. "I've been waiting…" A small growl escaped him as she rolled her hips against his. "For _too_ long," he finished, suddenly reluctant to divulge exactly how long he'd wanted Miss Elizabeth Swann in his bed.

With a near preternatural sense for a secret being kept, she pressed him, " _How_ long?"

Jack shook his head, unwilling to answer, thinking of a bonfire upon a deserted island in the middle of the Caribbean, and a beautiful lass who drank rum and ran in circles singing pirate songs with him there. The truth made him feel rather like a dirty old man taking advantage of a woman-child. At least she was a little older now, a little wiser. At least—

"How long?" she asked again, sliding her moist slit against his length once more, fascinated by the almost pained reaction it won her. He countered with a well-aimed thrust of his hips, placing himself just inside her entrance. "Oh!" she gasped, her hands convulsing upon his shoulders. Suddenly she forgot her question. She forgot everything but the desire to have Jack inside her. It was rather uncomfortable, truth be told, and yet still she wanted him to go on. To claim her, to make her _his_. To take something she could only give once, and she'd chosen to give it to him.

Jack propped himself up on his elbows, looking down his nose at her. She read untamed desire in his eyes, and also a hint of mischief. She had missed that look so much, yet now she remembered why she found it so infuriating. "Did I hear ye say something about…being _sorry_?" he asked with that wicked gleam.

The _nerve._ He _would_ ask such a thing _now_ when the only thing she could think clearly was that she _needed_ him inside her. Determined not to be outdone, Elizabeth moved her hips, attempting to pull him deeper inside her, even if it caused her pain. But Jack was quicker, adjusting so that he hovered just inside her entrance.

She said a few choice words that would have scalded the ears of gentile company. Jack, however, only laughed with delight for her expanded pirate vocabulary, smiling wide enough for gold teeth to catch the candlelight. Despite her frustration, Jack's laugh, his voice filled with joy, was a sound that touched her in her heart, deep in her soul. She fought not to smile, afraid to encourage him any further.

"Aye? Ye were saying?"

Equal parts furious and flustered again, Elizabeth smacked his shoulder. "Can we get on with this, if you please?"

"If ye tell me the truth."

Beneath the teasing, Elizabeth glimpsed something raw in Jack's eyes. She realized he really needed to know. "Of course I'm sorry," she answered, cupping his cheeks her hands. "I was sorry then and I'm sorry now. Happy?"

"Very," he answered, nipping the lobe of her ear, and covering her throat with moist kisses. She felt him begin to slowly push inside her, and the pain she'd felt before was _nothing_ compared to this. She gritted her teeth, burying her face in the bend of Jack's neck. He knew he was hurting her, as sure as he knew there was no other way. She felt something tearing inside her, and cried out as the worst pain stabbed at her loins. Jack stilled inside her, letting her adjust to the sensation of his body inside hers.

"It's done, luv," he said quietly, pressing a kiss to her temple.

He forged her anew with pain and fire, Elizabeth reckoned, his body and hers. She'd been irrevocably changed since the first moment they'd met. This seemed like the only logical conclusion.

She smiled cheekily, even as tears of pain gathered at the corners of her eyes. She ran her hands down his muscular back and the perfect curve of his buttocks, admiring his physique, _dizzy_ with joy to have him in her hands. He was _alive_ and in her arms _._ It was nothing less than a grand miracle.

"I certainly hope not yet, _Captain_ Sparrow." It was the encouragement he needed, and slowly he began to move inside her, making room until he reached the end of her maddeningly tight channel with the tip of his manhood.

And it still hurt, though more of a dull throb with every thrust, rather than the sharp stabbing pain of her maidenhead breaking.

"Lizzy," he groaned against the bend of her neck, his voice strained and strange, a timbre she'd never heard from him. "It won't always hurt like this. Next time…will be better."

She bit her lip, trying to suppress a smile for hearing him say there would _be_ a next time. In the end she lost the battle. "It's not so bad," she lied. She'd always been told this act was for a man's pleasure. In a way she never expected anything more. She'd never imagined there could be such pleasure possible, as what Jack had done to her with his mouth between her legs.

Jack shook his head though, knowing she was in pain, admiring her bravery. He felt her flinch every time he thrust inside her, and it made him feel like a bastard. He wanted her to know what it could be like, what it _should_ be like between a man and a woman. Jack imagined the drivel she must have been fed about the duties of marriage, some nonsense about _a lady did not partake in perverse pleasures_ or that _physical enjoyment was solely a man's realm_. He didn't have much experience with taking virgins, but he had an idea.

"Let's try something new, luv," he said, rolling their bodies so that Elizabeth perched on top of him. She gasped, unsure about the new position, though soon she realized she could control the angle and how far Jack was allowed inside her. With hands upon his chest she looked down at her pirate captain, his dark hair spread out upon the pillow, the charms in his hair glinting in the candlelight. He was _beautiful._ Wild, exotic, utterly _breathtaking_. And in this moment, he was _hers._

She watched with curiosity as he licked his thumb, and rubbed that mind-numbing nub of flesh between her legs once more.

"Oh, Jack," she whispered, involuntarily rocking her hips upon his thumb. He groaned as she moved upon him, his eyes closing with pleasure.

"Better?" he rasped, flicking his thumb back and forth in a way that nearly stole her faculties for speech.

"Yes," she answered, her voice so husky she hardly recognized it as her own.

"Then ride me, darlin'. Take what you want. Your body knows."

 _Take what you want._

That he would say such a thing to her after what she'd done to him…perhaps he _could_ forgive her someday after all.

Some little voice inside her, a left over thing from her former life, taunted Lizzy that she should be ashamed, riding Jack like a strumpet, naked as the day she was born and enjoying it to no ends. She quashed this voice inside her once and for all. It had no place in her world now. She closed her eyes and did as Jack told her, giving herself over to the sensations of Jack's touch and Jack's body inside hers. There was still pain, but the pleasure he invoked trumped her discomfort, even sharpened her pleasure somehow when she took him all the way. She never imagined it could be like _this._

Jack watched the gilded goddess moving above him with fascination, her hands buried in her hair as she rocked her hips in time with that eternal rhythm. She moved like the waves, pleasure crashing over him with her every motion. He would come soon like this; it was too much to bear. He hoped she would too.

"Jack?" Her voice was like smoke from a pipe, sweet and rich.

"Aye?"

"Why did you come back to the ship?"

At first his clouded mind thought she meant from the Locker, but then he realized she meant earlier, when the Kraken had been making a meal of the Pearl.

"You know why," he groaned, clinging to what vestiges of his armor still remained.

"Tell me," she insisted, slowing her pace. He realized that despite her inexperience, she was toying with him, the way he had her, and for some reason it delighted him. She was a quick study in all things. _Good_ he thought. _That will keep her alive in this world._

Jack suddenly sat up, pulling her closer with a hand fisted in her hair. "You," he answered raggedy, pressing his lips to hers. "I came back for _you_."

She felt that indescribable heat building then, a blooming sensation that curled between her legs and spread throughout her body like lit powder, causing the room to spin and her spine to bow with the force of it. Her body clenched upon his, her tight walls milking his cock until he felt himself coming too. Panicked thoughts of _not yet_ quickly gave way to a white hot and utterly blinding pleasure, Jack's mind gone numb as that final wave of release crashed into and over and through him, his trembling body spilling into hers.


	4. Part IV

**PART 4**

As the tide of passion receded the lovers clung to each other, a fine sheen of sweat like morning dew upon their skin. Elizabeth held Jack close, cradling his head upon her breast protectively, their bodies slumping together in their exhaustion.

"What would _you_ call that?" she asked, once regained her breath and some of her wits about her.

Puzzled at first, Jack furrowed his brow, combing through their earlier conversation. It all seemed like a distant dream now, the fog of sleep pulling at him. He wanted nothing more than to curl up on his berth with Lizzy in his arms, but he had a feeling she wouldn't allow him rest until her question was answered.

 _Ye don't even know what to call it, do you?_

Jack pressed his lips. There were a multitude of euphemisms for the act they had just performed, though only one seemed to really fit. He wondered if she would taunt him for saying it, but in the end decided he was too exhausted to pretend anymore.

"It's called making love. C'mere, Lizzy." He pulled her down into the berth, and she fitted snugly into the dip of his shoulder, her long legs tangled with his.

After hearing the rather coarse words other men had used to describe the intimate act they just performed, Elizabeth suspected some semantics to be a play.

Jack contemplated her silence, waiting for the battle to begin again. What volley of arrows would she fling at his heart next? _I don't love you_ , she would say with that haughty certainty, now that she had finally scratched that insatiable little itch with him.

Instead, her voice came quiet, almost timid, a thing rarely heard from Elizabeth Swann. "Have you _made love_ with many other women?" she dared ask, even though she felt certain she didn't really want the answer.

Jack sighed, though not for the reason she feared. "Not for a very long time, luv." _If ever_ , he realized, pulling her closer still, a little smile pulling at the corners of his lips. He marveled at the light and joyful feeling that assailed his brain, a giddiness that seemed to come straight from his heart. Ye Gods, _what_ had she done to him?

After coming back from the Locker a great and dark hole had occupied his soul. When faced with such a vacuum inside, sailing the seven seas forever without a heart to plague him seemed like a grand solution. Yet now… He looked down at the woman in his arms, her long golden hair spread across his pillow, her willowy limbs wrapped around him.

He realized that now he wanted to _live_. Not just to be alive, to be a thing that walked and talked and bled. But to be _in_ the world, free, free to sail the oceans and find treasures and make love to this fiery lass whenever they wished. This particular lass, who could now be quite impregnated with his progeny.

 _Bugger_.

Jack leapt up from the bed in a flurry that startled Elizabeth, leaving her blinking after him with heavy lidded eyes. "Where are you going?"

Across the cabin he poured water from a pitcher, washing himself with a fairly clean rag. After rinsing it he crossed the room to her, swabbing the cool cloth between her legs with a rather solemn expression. It came away reddish-pink, her maiden's blood mixed with his seed. He'd been told by the doxies that washing could help, but Jack suspected his chances for not becoming a father lay with luck now.

 _Well…fuck._

Had it been worth it after all?

 _Absolutely._

Marveling at the state of his seemingly newly addled brain, Jack said, "M'sorry, Lizzy. I shouldn't have…I should have been more careful."

Elizabeth closed her eyes, quite enamored of his gentle touch upon her aching flesh. The cool cloth soothed some of her pain. "It's alright, Jack." She didn't really think they were going to live long enough for it to matter, and he could see the thought in her eyes.

Perhaps an hour ago he would have agreed with her, but now a familiar defiance rose within him.

He wanted to _live_ , and he wanted _her_ to live. They did not have to roll over and die because some sniveling little man named Lord Beckett said so. They were not _expendable_ because they were an inconvenient thorn in the King's shoe.

They would find a way. There was always a way.

Settled into Jack's arms once more, Elizabeth toyed with the coarse black hairs that dusted his pectorals. Her touch travelled down, until it found the circular scar left by the Kraken once more. She bit her lip, tracing the beast's terrible legacy written on Jack's skin. She knew better than to ask for declarations of love or plans for their future at this moment, but she just could _not_ resist this one question.

"Will you ever forgive me, Jack?" she whispered.

The pirate sighed, moving her hand from the scar, pressing her palm over his heart. "Aye, maybe tomorrow," he teased, attempting to make light of it. _Tomorrow. Or in a few hours. Or maybe I already have,_ he mused. Even as he thought it, he felt like something sharp was wrapping around his heart once more. He found himself filled with his own question he couldn't resist asking, even if he perhaps didn't want the answer.

 _I'm not sorry,_ her words echoed again in his memory, and that same cold feeling spread in his belly as had on that fateful day.

"Could ye do it again?" he asked her quietly, quite dreading what could come next.

A long silence passed between them. Elizabeth could hear Jack's heartbeat beneath her ear, feel his pulse against her skin. She pulled him closer, possessive of the man clasped in her arms. "No," she finally answered, and Jack felt himself sag with palpable relief. "I'll never betray you again, Jack. My heart wouldn't survive it."

He believed her. He believed her because her answer was not a flowery line about _true love_ or _undying devotion._ It was a semi-selfish and completely pirate answer. She would not hurt him because of how it made _her_ feel, and therefore he felt he could maybe begin to trust her again. At least, he could trust her about as much as he could predict her. A shaky prospect with Elizabeth Swann, yet he seemed to know her better than any other.

She sat up on her elbows, regarding this legend of a pirate from inches away. "Could you ever leave me to die again?"

Jack's stomach veritably twisted in knots with the thought, guilt for the first time he'd done it paired with sadness that she even had to ask now. He deserved that. He deserved it ten times over. He brushed a stray lock of tawny hair from her eyes, tracing her dark brow with the blade of his thumb. "Nay, luv. Some mistakes even _I_ only need to make once."

Elizabeth smiled at him, the corner of her mouth turned up just so. It filled his heart with something indescribable. Something shining and warm and… _oh bugger it all to hell_.

He loved her.

He loved this brave and beautiful woman, and woe was to her that she seemed to love him back.

Jack returned her smile, and pulled her down with a hand in her hair into a melting lock of lips that re-ignited that maddening fire deep in his belly. How many _little deaths_ would it take to equal one very big one?

More than two, certainly.

A whole _boat load,_ surely.

 _Nights_ and _nights_ worth, undoubtedly.

Maybe even years?

It could be so.

Perhaps, Jack reckoned happily, he and Elizabeth Swann would _always_ have unfinished business between them.

 **The End**

 **A/N: Thank you everyone for your kind favorites and reviews! Hope you enjoyed! :)**

 **I always thought it was kind of funny that after POTC II we all scrambled around wondering "oooh how is Jack going to take his revenge on Elizabeth?" and kind of forgot that Jack really was kind of asking for what Elizabeth gave him, the lovable scamp. ::pinches fingers:: Just a little? I feel that even more keenly as an older woman, which means I'm now A) wiser or B) meaner. Or both? lol.**


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